This is going to make the relationship between Nixon and the media look like a love-fest. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a First-Amendment crisis*.
- Of course, as long as the Second Amendment is OK, it’s all good. :rolleyes:
That would be Pandora’s Box and, sadly, it’s not empty by a long shot.
When he has to meet ON the record, Trump is a kinder, gentler idiot.
“I’m thinking about possibly stopping knifing her in the back-Ain’t I just the sweetest thing?”
Nixon Jr. on possible conflicts of interest:
and
. No thought at all about whether something is right and/or proper-he’s just happy because he thinks he can get away with it.
So he’s going to carry on Obamas legacy. That’s great.
So…the P-word can’t have a conflict of interest BY DEFINITION? R-i-i-i-ght.
Color me Out of It.
The potentially valid theme is ‘never go off the record’. Otherwise there are lots of confused/confusing posts on this thread, and lots of back pedaling when called on it.
We’ve had and are going to have lots and lots of special pleading that Trump is such an exception to everything, so far out of bounds, that normal rules of ethics shouldn’t apply to dealing with him. But that’s fundamentally false IMO in terms of the decision of the voters. At least a near plurality* of voters decided that wasn’t true. To me that dramatically undercuts the idea of a public institution like the media saying it’s OK to break normal ethical rules as long as Trump is the object. Better to just admit one has no fixed ethics at all if calling for unethical (journalistic or other) behavior toward Trump ‘for the greater good’.
And practically speaking as some less overwrought posts have noted, if you say something is off the record then report it as if on the record, there is no more off the record after that, at least with that subject. So saying you’ll keep something off then unethically treating it as on the record is practically the same as no ‘off the record’, after one time. But ‘off the record’ must in general be a device which benefits journalists about as much as the subjects of their reporting, or it wouldn’t exist.
And Trump was in no way unethical to have an off the record session where he stated his true feelings about the ‘MSM’. He thinks they are a bunch of left-biased liars. He’s said so repeatedly in public. The purpose of ‘off the record’ is for subjects to say and journalists to hear, for general context, things the subject wouldn’t say publicly. Here that was mainly irrelevant as Trump just repeated what he’s said in public. And now everyone knows the general gist without the journalists breaking their ‘off the record’ promise directly anyway. If I were them I’d probably be pissed personally. But it’s silly to say Trump was acting unethically.
*the Electoral College v popular vote issue has its place but isn’t relevant in this context, or else we could say every candidate who lost by narrow margins (in both EC and popular, which has often happened) was proved beyond the pale: not reasonable. Moreover votes for Trump doesn’t count a potentially significant number of Clinton/Johnson/Stein voters who judged Trump to be, after all, within normal parameters, just not their first choice. In general the people so whipped up about politics and elections have to realize a lot of other people aren’t.
You’re right - God forbid a reporter should ever sacrifice his expectation of future access to a political figure in order to give the public an important insight into his character.
It’s reasonable to say that Trump was acting unethically. As you yourself noted, he wasn’t speaking off the record in order to say something he wouldn’t say in public (that he “things they are a bunch of left-based liars,” in your words).
He was speaking off the record in order to threaten them, implicitly and possibly even explicitly.
And that’s unethical.
That was basically the Chuck Todd defense for not calling out Republican guests on their lies- that if he did that, they wouldn’t come on his show any more. No guests=no ratings.
No the first point, he’d say it in public, just means ‘off the record’ was irrelevant. It’s not ‘unethical’ for me to comment off the record to a reporter saying only the same thing I’d say if it were on the record (which I’ve done, minor league compared to this, but still). ‘Off the record’ is only a promise by the reporter not to attribute specific quotes. It’s not a promise by the subject to say anything differently than they would on the record. It’s a promise by just one side. But again if that one sided promise wasn’t perceived by reporters to often, not always, benefit them the practice wouldn’t exist.
And the second point ‘he was threatening them’ you’re basically making up. ‘Implicitly’ in such a case just means you can say it without any proof. And ‘possibly even explicitly’, same hedge on your part.
…the press most certainly shouldn’t have recorded the meeting.
And they should abide by the agreement that the meeting was “off the record.”
But once it became clear that this was was not the meeting they expected: the press had a duty to leave the room. And all media should now agree to no further off the record meetings with this administration. If that means that their access to the White House gets “cut”: then so be it. The media cannot be complicit in this “new way of doing business.” The Trump Empire have already demonstrated they are masters of controlling the message.
But they are peddling propaganda. What was said today in the meeting with the New York Times was propaganda. This is the new normal. And the media need to adapt to the new normal: and quickly.
You’ve misunderstood. I was saying that the ‘off the record’-relevant part of the encounter was the threat to the reporters/anchors that they had better Be Nice to him, Or Else. Any whining-about-coverage Trump may have voiced at that meeting was, as you’ve conceded, pretty much the same thing that he’s said in public many times.
The ‘threats’ information comes not from Making it Up, but from listening to/reading what the participants themselves have said (both what’s been quoted here and elsewhere. The first I heard about it was on Brian Williams’ 11pm show on MSNBC, last night; here’s the ~10-minute segment, with the discussion of the meeting starting about half-way through: Donald Trump meets with rivals, loyalists)
If you’re trying to make the case that a meeting described as:
(The Post link, below)
(The MSNBC link)
(The Post link)
…can reasonably be inferred to mean that Trump is urging journalists to cover him fully and without favor, then I think you have a long way to go.
In real life conversations do you say P-word elect Trump?
A little obscure, even for this crowd. I was referencing the legend that the last thing to flutter out of Pandora’s box was hope… but the box seems to be empty.
Do you ever actually post anything of substance, or at least semi-relevant?
In real life I just blather, rant, and drool. Not like here.
I got that about Pandora, and that is indeed sad.
(Aside) Different versions of the Pandora myth. One is that hope was the last thing in the box, the gift. The other is that hope was the last thing in the box, the curse. (/aside)
Yeah, I can see either one of those being true.
You know a lot of stuff. Catholic school?
Got a cousin John Wesley, a cousin John W., a cousin J.W., cousin Wes…want to hazard a guess?